Owls are such interesting animals. When I did a little research, I found out that owls represent wisdom, knowledge, change, transformation, intuitive development, and they are associated with trusting the mystery. They are tied to the spiritual symbolism of death, which brings about new beginnings with a higher understanding and evolved perspective. Owls can show up when you are being asked to listen to your intuition.
Funny thing is, my youngest daughter Sophia (whose name means “wisdom”) has always loved owls. When we went to Auckland, New Zealand, together three years ago, we found owl statues all over the city.
(My daughter Sophia posing with some of the owl statues we found in our visit to Auckland, NZ)
However, this is not the kind of owl I want to talk about. I want to talk about The Meeting Owl.
In the last 18 months, our staff has become used to meeting via Zoom, when we were all working from our home offices. Now many of us are in hybrid mode. During a group meeting, some of the team may be in the office, while others may be remote in separate locations. (Frankly, it has gotten a little weird to continue having meetings via Zoom when all but one person is in the office.)
Enter, “The Meeting Owl.”
I was introduced to the Meeting Owl by a professional speaker who experienced the technology firsthand when speaking to a small group. Some of the attendees were in a room together and others were remote. The Meeting Owl sits in the center of your meeting table and offers much better sound quality than a laptop, plus it offers the benefit of multiple camera images captured from around the room. The guest speaker said it was great to be able to see everyone individually while he was presenting!
So, picture this: I am holding a team meeting in my corporate office conference room and five of us are sitting around the table. Three of our team members are remote from their local home offices. We want to share a PowerPoint presentation or spreadsheets to have a discussion during our meeting. Before, we would all have had to be at our desk on Zoom – meaning we missed the dynamics of sitting around a conference room table together.
Now with the Owl, we see all the remote people on the screen, and each remote person sees individual images of those of us sitting around the conference room table. When we speak, the owl naturally zooms into the image of the speaker and projects it separately on the share screen. And the sound quality is fantastic!
So, if you are experiencing Zoom fatigue with your team meetings and have a hybrid work environment, check out the Owl. It’s a brilliant invention!
Karen
